Andy Warhol: A Retrospective

MoMA Artist Series

by Kynaston McShine, Robert Rosenblum, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh

This book is a summation of the career of an American artist whose work uniquely embodies the cultural shocks and ambiguities of our times. A master of media and an impresario of personality, Andy Warhol had by the time of his death in 1987 elevated himself to what Robert Rosenblum calls "the timeless and spaceless realm of a modern mythology that he himself both created and mirrored." His name, like Picasso's, is known throughout the world; his most famous creations, the familiar icons ofPpop art, are instantly recognized and relentlessly imitated.

And yet, many of the works of this multifaceted and prolific artist have been shown and reproduced only sporadically. The exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art which this publication accompanies is the first full-scale, comprehensive Warhol retrospective. This volume, with more than six hundred illustrations, presents for the first time the full range of astonishing oeuvre.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Kynaston McShine (born 1935) is a Trinidadian-born museum curator. In 1966, as curator at the Jewish Museum, he organized the first museum survey of minimalist art, Primary Structures (1966 exhibition). At the Museum of Modern Art, where he became associate curator in 1968, he initiated the innovative Projects series and has organized some of the museum’s most important exhibitions, including the early survey of conceptual art, Information (1970); exhibitions of Marcel Duchamp (1973), Joseph Cornell (1980), and Andy Warhol (1989); The Museum as Muse: Artists Reflect (1999); Edvard Munch: The Modern Life of the Soul (2006); Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years (2007). He has held positions in the MOMA's Department of Painting and Sculpture as Associate Curator, 1968–71; Curator of Exhibitions, 1971–84; Senior Curator, 1984–2001; Acting Chief Curator 2001-03 and Chief Curator at Large, 2003-2008. In 2003, McShine was the recipient of the CCS Bard for curatorial excellence.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I never read. I just look at pictures." -- Andy Warhol, in 1968

Next month the pop art provocateur will have been gone for 33 (!) years. This retrospective, which was first published about two years after his passing, is a wonderful collection of the man's unique and original work. Over 300 pages are devoted to his illustrations, paintings, and of course his 60's signature silk-screens - ranging in subject matter from Campbell's soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles, to celebrities like Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe - that he produced from 1948 to 1987. The essays that open and close the book are okay, but best part is the fairly comprehensive overview of his output. Probably my favorite work here was the striking Jackie (The Week That Was) from late 1963, a silk-screen collage of Jackie Kennedy photographs representing her arrival in Dallas, the aftermath of the assassination, the witnessing of LBJ's swearing-in, and the funeral procession.